Modeling the impact of state and federal incentives on concentrating solar power market penetration

ABSTRACT This paper presents methodology and results from the Regional Energy Deployment System Model (ReEDS) examining the ability of concentrating solar power (CSP), other renewables, and electricity storage to contribute to the U.S. electric sector. ReEDS is a multiregional, multi-time-period, geographic information system (GIS), and linear programming model, designed to address the principal market issues related to the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the electric sector over the next 50 years. These issues include transmission cost/access and the intermittency of solar and wind power. ReEDS examines these issues using a highly discrete regional structure, renewable resource variability, and consideration of ancillary services requirements and costs. The model was exercised in a business-as-usual scenario that doesn't require any renewable deployment, a second scenario that represents an implementation of current state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements, and a third scenario with a federal renewables requirement. For the years to 2050, the amounts of national generation capacity by technology as well as the emission levels in each scenario are presented. Additionally, the regional deployment of CSP is also examined and presented. Background and Model Overview The Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) 1 is a computer model of expansion of generation and transmission capacity in the U.S. electric sector spanning the next 50 years. It minimizes system-wide costs of meeting loads, reserve requirements, and emission constraints by building and operating new generators and transmission in each of 26 two-year periods from 2000 to 2050. ReEDS is focused on addressing the market issues of greatest significance to renewables. ReEDS attempts to examine these issues primarily by using a much higher level of geographic disaggregation than other models. Most other models -such as the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) used by the U.S. Energy Information Agency -have only a few regions in the United States (13 in the case of the NEMS electric sector). Because of this, these models cannot adequately represent transmission and renewable energy resource spatial diversity. With a high level of geographic disaggregation, we can model these distance effects directly within the model. ReEDS uses 358 different regions in the entire United States. Much of the data inputs to ReEDS are tied to these regions and derived from a detailed GIS model/database of the renewable resources, transmission grid, and existing plant data. The geographic disaggregation of solar resources allows ReEDS to calculate transmission distances and the benefits of dispersed solar plants supplying power to a demand region. Concentrating solar power troughs (the technology currently included in ReEDS) are most economic in those regions with a high level of direct beam radiation. In the United States, viable resource areas are located primarily within the southwestern part of the United States. Therefore, to minimize model complexity. GIS data requirements